The subject matter disclosed herein relates to gasification, and, more particularly, to gasification feed injectors.
A variety of combustion systems employ feed injectors to inject a fuel into a combustion chamber. For example, an integrated gasification combined cycle (IGCC) power plant includes a gasifier with one or more feed injectors. The feed injectors supply a fuel, such as an organic feedstock, into the gasifier along with oxygen and steam to generate a syngas. In certain systems, the fuel may be a liquid slurry. When the liquid slurry is not flowing or being used, flow paths containing the liquid slurry may become plugged due to settling or may be susceptible to oxidation and coking. In addition, the feed injectors may be configured to supply the fuel only at normal, or high, flow rates. However, operation of the gasifier at lower fuel flow rates may be advantageous to reduce emissions during startup or standby operations. Unfortunately, existing fuel feed systems and feed injector systems may be inadequate for use with liquid slurry fuels and/or at low fuel flow rates.